Illinois F***ed? So admits Rauner!

This may well become the election cycle of the candidate who openly admitted what a mess Illinois government has become.

Of course, there also are those who will say the reason Illinois has become so f***ed up is because of Bruce Rauner himself.

SO YES, I find it sort of amusing to learn of the governor’s latest re-election campaign ad – the one called “Unholy Union” that portrays a clergyman presiding over the “wedding” of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his “bride,” J.B. Pritzker.

With said clergyman ending the service by proclaiming “Illinois f***ed” (with the beep blipping out the use of the obscenity). Implying that a vote for J.B. instead of Bruce come Nov. 6 will be to support a political union that will unleash all kinds of bad things upon the people of the Land of Lincoln.

Kind of odd in the use of gay marriage imagery, since there are those ideologues amongst our state who want to believe Rauner himself has been too lax in fighting against certain moralistic issues such as gay marriage.

But I’m sure Rauner is gambling that many ideologues will view the idea of two men being married, hear the names of “Madigan” and “Pritzker” and will become so grossed out that they will automatically vote “no” to notion of J.B. as governor.

AS FOR THOSE people who will become offended with Rauner for mocking a gay marriage image? He probably figures those people weren’t going to vote for him no how. No real loss there!

Let’s be honest; things did become significantly worse in Illinois during the Age of Rauner – largely because he came in with a solidly anti-union agenda. He wanted to play hardball against organized labor to try to reduce the influence of unions within Illinois government.

That is why we had nothing accomplished for those first two years of Rauner’s time in office, and why most political people have put the concept of dumping Bruce Rauner from office as their priority in this year’s election cycle.

If Madigan were truly the hard-core obstructionist that Rauner has consistently tried to portray him as being, we’d likely have countless horror stories from the many other GOP-oriented governors the House speaker has had to work with. Which we don’t.

SO YES, ILLINOIS is “F***ed.” We heard it from Bruce himself.

Perhaps a step in the right direction to fixing that is to dump Rauner and put people in charge who are interested in operating government – instead of trying to score political points for themselves at the expense of the unions and behaving as though everyone who disagrees with their ideology IS the problem.

Of course, all this “Dump Madigan” rhetoric isn’t new. It was the basis of gubernatorial campaigns in 2010 and 2014. Rauner is merely upping the ante of the campaign tactics that he thinks were successful when he first ran for election. He thinks he won, so it must have worked. Ignoring that he has been a Republican serving as governor, having to deal with a whole batch of Democrats in other political posts.

In fact, one theme I oft have heard from Republican partisans this election cycle is that we need to have Rauner in office to hold in check the actions that other officials might try to do.

ONE COULD ARGUE just as strong that we needed all those Democrats in place to hold in check Rauner’s own ideological leanings – which actually were very clear and open when he first ran for office. He’s anti-union. Everything else (including all those social issues the ideologues get so worked up over) is of lesser importance.

All this anti-Madigan rhetoric is spread throughout the campaigning; from the television spots proclaiming Madigan and congressional candidate Sean Casten to be “two sides of the same coin” to Republican attorney general candidate Erika Harold proclaiming, “I’ll never take orders from Mike Madigan.”

Seriously, what’s she going to do if she wins, then finds her office as the defense attorney for the Illinois House speaker? As much as some want to think of the Illinois AG as a super-prosecutor, she’s actually more likely to find herself defending Illinois when things get screwed up.

Unless she’s also more interested in playing partisan politics, rather than governing for the people. A concept that, to be honest, is “F***ed” up.

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